The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens grabbed the big screen glory over the Holiday season. If you didn’t see it or hear or read about it in reviews, squawks, or other media gore, you were probably having real fun somewhere off the grid.

Not only did Star Wars beat out all other films showing over the holiday season (so far pulling in over $1.51 million worldwide) but, according to social media rankings from Engagement Labs eValue, Star Wars beat out Joy, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip on Twitter and Instagram, too.

Curiously, Alvin and the Chipmunks beat out Star Wars on Facebook, where the cheerful rodents scored the number one spot. Star Wars was second. (This means Walt Disney & Co. wins in social media.)

Star Wars also enjoyed its highest fan growth spikes on Twitter and Instagram: over 84K new fans tweeted over the holiday period, and 297,104 new fans on Instagram. That's just over the holiday period. More to come.

Star Wars, which launched in May, 1977, is approaching its 40th anniversary at light speed. The Star Wars franchise is less a film than it is a worldwide community of avid fans who have steadfastly crowded around each new episode. No matter if the episode has been stellar or just more space chum, these fans have been loyal and avid for generations.

They know the words, the actions, the characters, the parodies, the chatter and they feed each other the spacey bits in a number of venues from Facebook and YouTube to private sites and blogs. The depth and density of the Star Wars community not only is epic, it feeds upon itself. As new generations find places for themselves in the community, they attract others—each time granting more affinity, advocacy and sharing. It’s a social community with an architecture of memes, community zones and open access.

The characters in number seven, the most recently launched episode of Star Wars, were flashbacks to the vintage version, Star Wars #1. It’s no spoiler to tell you that the Millennium Falcon has aged, and so have its occupants. Carrie Fisher lashed back at all the trolls who decried the aging of Princess Leia over the Holiday week. Even The Force cannot stop the aging process and only Chewbacca seems to have come out unscathed.